CCRC is a partner in a multiyear national initiative to help more community college students succeed, particularly low-income students and students of color. Launched in 2003 by Lumina Foundation for Education, Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count (www.achievingthedream.org) currently involves 102 institutions in 22 states.

In partnership with other national organizations and funders, CCRC leads the “knowledge development” work for Achieving the Dream by conducting research to maximize learning from the initiative. Two focal areas of CCRC’s research include: 1) working with participating states to use the data they collect to inform improvements in policy and practice; and 2) learning from Achieving the Dream colleges about strategies for building a “culture of inquiry and evidence” in community colleges.

Using state data to improve community college policy and practice.

A growing number of states are recognizing the potential of using data collected at the state level to inform changes in policy and practice that can lead to improved outcomes for students and regions. CCRC is at the forefront of working with state community college agencies to use such data to better understand patterns of student progression, identify barriers to student achievement, and formulate and evaluate strategies for overcoming those barriers. Particularly potent for this purpose are state-level student unit record (SUR) data, which allow tracking of individual students over time, both within and across education systems and into the labor market.   

CCRC is working with several of the states involved in Achieving the Dream. For example, researchers have conducted several studies in partnership with the Florida Department of Education, which has the most comprehensive state-wide longitudinal database in the country, with the capacity to track students in public education from kindergarten through graduate school. In a recent study published as Do Student Success Courses Actually Help Community College Students Succeed? (CCRC Brief No. 36), researchers tested an earlier finding by Dr. Patricia Windham of the Florida Department of Education that students who take student success courses are more likely to complete credentials, persist, or transfer to a state university. The CCRC study found that students who enrolled in a student success course were 8 percent more likely over five years to complete a credential and 5 percent more likely to transfer to a state university than were students who did not enroll in such a course. Developmental education students who took a student success course also did better than those who did not take a success course.  

CCRC is also working with the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) to analyze longitudinal SUR data from that state. Researchers have tracked data on the progression of cohorts of Washington community and technical college students over several years to identify “momentum points”--such as passing a college-level mathematics course or accumulating a given number of credits--that are correlated with degree completion and other successful outcomes. Using this analysis as well as other research, a broadly representative task force convened by the SBCTC staff recommended to the State Board a set of six momentum points that will serve as “pay points” in a new performance funding scheme the Board adopted to motivate colleges to improve student outcomes.  

Based on this work, Timothy Leinbach and Davis Jenkins of CCRC wrote a guide (titled Using Longitudinal Data to Increase Community College Student Success) for state agency and college researchers on using longitudinal data to identify momentum points for community college students. With funding from Lumina Foundation for Education, CCRC is now evaluating the initial implementation of Washington’s momentum point performance funding policy, which is called the Student Achievement Initiative. Researchers also plan to conduct a quantitative analysis over the next 3 to 5 years to determine if the Student Achievement Initiative does indeed lead to improved outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged students.

Building a “culture of inquiry and evidence” to support student success at community colleges.

Colleges and universities are increasingly adopting new strategies for performance improvement in which decisions about the design, management, and funding of academic programs and services are made based on evidence of what works to improve student outcomes. Achieving the Dream is working with participating community colleges to demonstrate whether colleges can enhance student success by building a culture of evidence and inquiry in which faculty, student services staff, and administrators work together to bring about continuous improvements in their programs and services, using data and research to guide their efforts.  

In collaboration with MDRC, an evaluation is in progress of the culture of evidence model that is being tested by Achieving the Dream. In May 2007, as part of the Achieving the Dream evaluation, researchers published a report, titled Building a Culture of Evidence for Community College Student Success, based on field research at the 27 first-round Achieving the Dream colleges. The report describes the challenges these institutions are facing in building a culture of evidence as well as promising practices they are developing to do so. Based on this initial research, CCRC developed a framework that summarizes the principles, process, and performance indicators of the Achieving the Dream model of institutional improvement. The framework also includes a tool designed to measure the extent to which colleges have adopted policies and practices that reflect the model.   

To better understand the ways in which faculty and administrators use data and research on students, surveys were conducted at a sample of Achieving the Dream colleges. A summary of the findings from the survey research was released in February 2009, titled Faculty and Administrator Data Use at Achieving the Dream Colleges: A Summary of Survey Findings (a full-length report was also released). CCRC also conducted fieldwork at a sample of Achieving the Dream colleges in spring 2008 to examine key issues such as strategies for engaging faculty and institutionalizing the culture of evidence. The report Achieving the Dream Colleges in Pennsylvania and Washington State: Early Progress Toward Building a Culture of Evidence describes the progress made by the 13 Pennsylvania and Washington State community colleges that comprise Round Three of the initiative after planning and one year of implementation.

Many publications related to Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count are available for download, below. The lead contact for this research is Davis Jenkins.